allusion in the well known passage, where his presence was required, as customary, at a general meeting, 2 S. VI. 36, 7. De re communi scribæ magnâ atque novâ te Orabant hodie meminisses, Quinte, reverti : is inexplicable on any other hypothesis: the old commentator in Cruquius asserts it without scruple. And if one may suppose, that the duties of the place could be performed by deputy with occasional attendance of the principal, nothing can be more natural than so, in part, to interpret two lines in the Epistle (XIV) to his Villicus, vv. 16, 17. Me constare mihi scis, et discedere tristem, Nor is it impertinent to remark, that if the profits of the situation bore any proportion to the increase of the public revenue after the year B. c. 41. Horace must have found his original purchase a very lucky one, in the twenty years or more, during which he seems to have retained it. Whatever were Horace's means of living during the period which elapsed before he was enriched by Mæcenas with the Sabine estate; from his own description of the style in which he lived at Rome, 1 S. vr. 114-118. inde domum me Ad porri et ciceris refero laganique catinum. we may well believe, that a very narrow income was adequate to so frugal an expenditure with so humble an establishment. His usual diet, indeed, was little altered by his increase of fortune, itself not very large in those times. When he had got the Sabine estate, the value of which we are partly enabled to estimate by the eight slaves upon it, implied in the threat to Davus; 2 S. vII. 117, 118. ocius hinc te Ni rapis, accedes opera agro nona Sabino. he is thus addressed on his style of living by that clever rogue, (during the Saturnalia, and at Rome, be it remembered,) ibid. 29, 30. si nusquam es forte vocatus Ad cœnam, laudas securum olus. The very dinner which Lucilius shared with Lælius and the younger Scipio; 2 S. 1. 71-74. Quin ubi se a vulgo et scena in secreta remôrant Virtus Scipiada et mitis sapientia Lælî; Nugari cum illo, et discincti ludere, donec And such also in Horace's day was the ordinary fare; 2 E. 11. 167, 8. Emtor Aricini quondam Veientis et arvi Some fifteen years afterwards, in the Epistle to Torquatus, 1 E. v. 1, 2. his invitation very candidly promises the plainest entertainment; Si potes Archiacis conviva recumbere lectis, Nec modicâ cœnare times olus omne patellâ, &c. though, as we are told at the conclusion, there would be a small party to meet him, with room for a few friends (locus est et pluribus umbris) if he chose to bring them. Nor did he hold other language at any period between that of the Satire here first adduced, 1 S. VI. 115. and that of the Epistle just quoted. Of the homely fare on which from choice he actually lived, 1 C. xxxi. 16, 7. me pascunt olivæ, Me cichorea levesque malvæ. he only prays to have the enjoyment continued: "Frui paratis," with the superadded blessing of health and the use of his faculties during the remainder of life, 1 S. x. 40-45. Argutâ meretrice potes, Davoque Chremeta Eludente senem, comis garrire libellos Ut nemo, Varius ducit: molle atque facetum The comic author Fundanius we meet again, (2 S. vi. 19,) as the pleasant narrator of what happened at Nasidienus's dinner. Varius, whose fine tragedy of Thyestes is so highly praised by Quintilian, appears already to have been celebrated for that epic talent alluded to in 1 C. vI., Scriberis Vario fortis et hostium Victor, Mæonio carminis aliti; &c. and Pollio had acquired eminence in the tragic drama, which we find him still maintaining when afterwards engaged in the history of the civil wars; 2 C. 1. 9-12. Paulum severæ Musa Tragœdiæ Desit theatris; mox, ubi publicas Res ordinâris, grande munus while in regard to Virgil the clear information is gained, that he was then only known as the writer of Bucolics, but in the delicacy and high finish of his style, (molle atque facetum,) even then indicating the consummate poet that was soon to arise. And here from the same satire not unaptly may be introduced the proud list of all Horace's friends at that early day. vv. 81-88. Plotius, et Varius, Mæcenas, Virgiliusque, Ambitione relegatâ, te dicere possum, Pollio, te, Messala, tuo cum fratre; simulque Vos, Bibule et Servi; simul his te, candide Furni: Complures alios, doctos ego quos et amicos Prudens prætereo, &c. &c. Well then might Horace, when allowing in other respects the superiority of Lucilius, justly assert that he too had shared the friendship of the 2 S. 1. 74-78. great; Quicquid sum ego, quamvis Let us now proceed to the virth Satire, Proscripti Regis Rupili, &c., which might be supposed (and not without some plausibility) to have been Horace's earliest attempt in Satiric writing, having the scene of its story at Clazomenæ, and in the presence of the great Brutus. In that view M. Sanadon speciously enough assigns for its date a few months before the battle of Philippi, and even discovers, in its juvenile carelessness of composition, an argument to favour that date. The old Scholiast, however, quoted by Baxter, appears to give a different, and, as I understand it, a very satisfactory account of the matter. Publius Rupilius cognomine Rex, Prænestinus, commilito fuit Horatii in castris Bruti. Hic ægre ferens quod Horatius Tribunus esset, sæpe ignobilitatem generis illi objiciebat: idcirco nunc eum ex personâ alterius lacerat. This idea derives additional support and developement from two remarks of the judicious Gesner. Forte hæc demum post victoriam Cæsarianorum scripta, cum partes Bruti objiceret Horatio recepto, receptus ipse Rupilius ut Tubero olim Ligario.-Rem non plane recentem commendari versibus, ipsum exordium declarat. : And on Gesner's supposition that Rupilius had thus given offence to Horace at Rome, after they both returned, the VIIth Satire, viewed as a retaliation, will be found not unhappily subjoined as a kind of appendix to the vith, Non quia Mæcenas, &c., which resents (vv. 6-45.) the ill natured imputation, libertino patre natum, cast upon him by certain envious detractors. Assuming this origin of the Satire to be correct, we may accept as literally true, Horace's own account of his beginning to write verse; that he was first driven to it by necessity after the confiscation of his paternal estate; 2 E. 11. 51. paupertas impulit audax Ut versus facerem. In all the books of Horace, indeed, those of Satires, of Epodes, of Odes, and of Epistles, as the constituent parts now stand arranged in each, I am strongly of opinion, that after a due allowance for much caprice and casualty perhaps, there may still be discovered great ingenuity shown by Horace himself in the close succession by which some pieces are brought together, and not less of skill, judgment, and delicacy in the intentional disjunction of others. The peculiar consideration here suggested from internal evidence, will support the whole hypothesis of Bentley by a train of argument not perhaps suspected before. To exemplify the nature of that reasoning, let a few clear instances suffice for the present. Thus the similarity of attachment which Horace bore to both his friends, Septimius and Pompeius, may fairly account for the neighbourly collocation which those two beautiful Odes (2 C. VI, VII.) now occupy. And thus the general similitude of subject in the two Epistles, XVII. to Scæva, and XVIII. to Lollius, (younger brother to him addressed, Maxime Lolli, 1 E. 11. 1,) though addressed to two characters totally dissimilar, doubtless led to their juxtaposition when published. Strangely enough, with all the obvious difference between the characters, even Gesner (ad 1 E. xvIII. 1.) is inclined to think that the two persons might be identically the same, and that of the two Epistles as they now stand, the latter |